Conventional drawing programs generally allow the creation and editing of drawings by providing a variety of shapes that can be selected and placed within the drawings. For instance, shapes such as squares, rectangles, circles, triangles, and other types of shapes may be placed within a drawing. Tools are also typically provided for orienting and sizing the shapes in the diagram as desired. Other tools may also be provided for drawing other types of shapes and performing other types of drawing functions.
Some conventional drawing programs provide a feature that allows data to be associated with the shapes in a drawing. For example, functionality may be provided for associating data stored at an external data source with the various attributes of a shape. In this way, the value of the external data may be utilized to specify the color, size, position, text, or other attributes of a shape within a drawing. External data may also be displayed in shapes as an additional visual element, such as an icon or a progress bar, which is displayed on or adjacent to the shape.
An equation may also be specified that defines how the value of the external data should modify the attributes of a shape. For instance, an equation may be defined that specifies that the color of the shape should be changed to red if a sales value retrieved from an external database is less than a specified value. Another formula may be defined that specifies that the color of the shape should be green when the sales value retrieved from the external database is greater than the specified value.
In addition to the creation of drawings, drawing programs also allow users to view and edit drawings created by other users using the same application or a compatible application. However, in order to view and edit a drawing created by another user, the appropriate drawing program utilized to create the drawing, or a compatible drawing program, must typically be installed on the computer on which the drawing is to be viewed.
In many cases, a user may simply be unable to view a drawing if they do not have a copy of the application program utilized to create the drawing installed on their computer. In other cases, it may be necessary for a user to locate, download, and install a compatible viewer application program for displaying the drawing on their computer in order to view the drawing. It may, however, be difficult for a user to locate, install, and execute such a viewer application. In yet other cases, a compatible version of the application program or viewer application may not be available for the type of device on which the user wishes to view the document. For instance, a user may wish to view a drawing on a personal digital assistant (“PDA”) or a wireless mobile telephone for which a version of the application program utilized to create the drawing or a viewer application does not exist. This can be extremely frustrating for a user that has a need to view a drawing, including any shapes connected to external data contained therein, but who does not possess the necessary application program utilized to create the drawing or a compatible viewer application.
Some diagramming applications allow the user to export a diagram as a picture or a web page, which will allow other users to view the diagram using a world wide web (“Web”) browser. However, the exported diagram will be viewed as a static picture that does not allow for any change to the shapes as a result of a change to the external data associated with the shapes. All links to external data are severed, providing a user viewing the diagram via a Web browser with potentially outdated information.
It is with respect to these considerations and others that the disclosure made herein is presented.